Bloom's Sixth

In addition to asking participants at the Teaching Summit how they created community in their classes, Peter Felten also asked what barriers instructors faced in creating connections with students. Felten shared this word cloud of the responses. Peter Felten’s keynote message about building relationships through teaching found a receptive audience at this year’s Teaching Summit. Felten, a professor of…

In a focus group before the pandemic, I heard some heart-wrenching stories from students. One was from a young, Black woman who felt isolated and lonely. She mostly blamed herself, but the problems went far beyond her. At one point, she said: Peter Felten explains a family picture he shared at the 2023 Teaching Summit. He uses the picture, which shows his father as a young boy, in his classes as a way to connect with students through family history. “There’s some small classes that I’m in and like, some of my teachers don’t know my name. I mean, they don’t know my name. And I just, I…

The future of higher education may very well hinge on our skill as interpreters and communicators. Too often, though, we never bother to define the terms we use or to help students, parents, and employers understand the purpose and significance of a college education, Ashley Finley told participants at the 2021 KU Teaching Summit last week. Ashley Finley “We develop language as currency,” said Finley, who is vice president for research at the Association of American Colleges and…

Ann Austin calls for a show of hands during her keynote address at the Teaching Summit. We know the story well. We helped write it, after all. As instructors and students and administrators, we have lived the story of modern higher education. And yet, despite the familiarity of that story – or perhaps because of it – we continue to struggle with its meaning and direction. Ann Austin, an education professor and administrator at Michigan State, told participants at KU’s annual…

Alma Clayton-Pedersen offers this vision for higher education: “Imagine what a nation we would be if students really took away everything we wanted them to have,” she said at last week’s Teaching Summit in Lawrence. Alma Clayton-Pedersen at the KU Teaching Summit Problem is, they don’t. Much of the reason for that, she said, has to do with their background, the quality of the education they received before college, the way they are treated in college, and the connections they feel – or don’t feel – to their peers, their instructors and their campus. We talk about college readiness as…

After a session at the KU Teaching Summit last week, I spoke with a faculty member whose question I wasn’t able to get to during a discussion. The session, Classrooms and the Future of Education, focused on how KU is working to create and renovate classrooms for active learning. Universities around the country are doing the same, putting in movable tables and chairs, and adding nontraditional furniture, whiteboards, monitors, and various digital accoutrements to make collaboration and hands-on learning easier, and learning environments more inviting. The faculty member at my session said…